Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 26th - March 4th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 3rd - March 4th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €213,530 and ran 2888 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SP

8


1. SP (€39,803)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,689)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€294)

279

€44,290

PvdA

21


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€22,781)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€5,398)
3. PvdA Limburg (€2,960)

286

€38,926

GroenLinks

7


1. GroenLinks (€31,812)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€932)
3. Jesse Klaver (€501)

97

€33,879

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€15,259)
2. Wybren van Haga (€740)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

18

€16,099

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€15,604)

414

€15,604

VVD

25


1. VVD (€5,929)
2. VVD Flevoland (€2,426)
3. Limburgse VVD (€2,201)

341

€14,792

CDA

19


1. CDA (€5,372)
2. CDA Noord-Holland (€3,734)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€1,380)

207

€14,309

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€4,948)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€952)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€551)

186

€7,492

PVV

6


1. Geert Wilders (€4,653)
2. PVV Fryslan (€226)
3. PVV Enschede (€196)

36

€5,417

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€4,008)

261

€4,008

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€3,561)

38

€3,561

ChristenUnie

8


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,335)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€691)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€532)

111

€3,204

DENK

2


1. DENK (€2,776)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€372)

383

€3,148

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,938)
2. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€547)
3. 50PLUSFlevoland (€367)

59

€2,993

D66

7


1. D66 (€1,298)
2. D66 Overijssel (€452)
3. D66 Zeeland (€158)

110

€2,308

SGP

4


1. SGP (€669)
2. SGP provincie Gelderland (€643)
3. SGP Zeeland (€399)

45

€1,811

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,589)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,689

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €109,007 and ran 2032 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

GroenLinks

5


1. GroenLinks (€18,560)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€864)
3. Jesse Klaver (€501)

74

€20,327

PvdA

16


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€8,058)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,625)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€1,801)

167

€16,706

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€12,574)

414

€12,574

SP

6


1. SP (€10,391)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,684)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€159)

123

€12,534

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€8,210)
2. Wybren van Haga (€702)

10

€8,912

CDA

15


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€3,734)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€1,380)
3. CDA Limburg (€1,206)

180

€8,388

VVD

20


1. VVD (€2,464)
2. Limburgse VVD (€1,701)
3. VVD Flevoland (€761)

269

€7,405

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€4,730)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€753)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€271)

164

€6,558

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€2,962)

36

€2,962

ChristenUnie

7


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,085)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€301)

83

€2,168

PVV

3


1. Geert Wilders (€1,500)
2. PVV Fryslan (€106)
3. PVV Hengelo (€100)

18

€1,706

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,137)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€308)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€131)

42

€1,696

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,260)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€340)

249

€1,600

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,491)

110

€1,491

D66

6


1. D66 (€498)
2. D66 Overijssel (€452)
3. D66 Zeeland (€158)

46

€1,408

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,298)

12

€1,298

SGP

4


1. SGP (€669)
2. SGP Zeeland (€399)
3. SGP provincie Gelderland (€106)

35

€1,274

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 3rd - March 4th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 26th - March 4th 2023 (Last 7 days)